Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
I think coal was the cause of the killer fogs.
I forget but it takes 4-12 cords of wood to heat a house in the winter. That is a lot of wood, now a housewife would have to saw the logs, split the cut pieces (preferably with a sledge and wedges) and then split the kindling. Now you can split with an axe, but it is a great way to cut your self. Then the wood also needs to be seasoned, preferably after sawing and before splitting, it takes about a year to make sure most of it is seasoned.
So you need to have next years wood sawed up and stacked a year in advance, then you split the stuff your sawed last year. Now the real issue is rain, which is why you have a wood shed, that is to keep the split wood dry. Especially after freezing weather comes, the wood that is wet will not dry, so you want it dry and in the shed before winter.
So you need about double the amount of wood you burn around.
Now the other issue besides the pain of cooking on wood is chimneys and fires. You can set the inside of your house on fire a number of ways especially with candles and lanterns. There is a brick hearth to your fireplace if you are lucky, and hopefully a good draw on your chimney. Nothing like the smoke that comes into the house when the flue is cold or the wind backs the chimney. If you burn hard wood, and burn four cords, your chimney is not likely to need cleaning every season, but burn eight cords and it is probably a good idea. If you burn soft , pitchy or wet wood, you are going to have much more creosote in the chimney and it needs regular cleaning.
Then there is the issue of the flue, modern liners are ceramic, single pieces, they are also usually encased in bricks. Guess what a log cabin does not have? Bricks. Guess what is not available in many parts of the world? Stone for chimneys. So either you have a partially wooden chimney or you have a stone chimney that butts up against the wood frame of your house.
So creosote is combustible, you just have to get the chimney really hot and have flames reach a spot full of creosote, that and a stone chimney can get very hot, if you have crack in it you can have flames and heat directly on the frame of your house. If you have a wooden chimney without a ceramic flue, you can only have very small fires.
So that is the hazards and problems with burning wood for heat, it is one thing if you have a modern cast iron stove, a sledge and wedges or a power splitter, a large frame saw drawn by two or a chain saw. It is another matter if the hearth and fire box are cold, drafty, wet and your kindling is scant and you are trying to use sparks and tinder to start the kindling. Oh so you might need a seasons worth of tinder as well.
Oh and that is why you bank the fire, that does not just mean that you pile the coals up, it can if you have a really good coal bed and some decent splits in the firebox, you might have enough coals in the morning to have a fire. But often it means putting un split pieces in the fire box about two hours before bed, letting them get good and hot and then banking the fire. Now this provides a tiny smidge of heat at night, and allows for a guaranteed fire in the morning, but it also means what? Leaving the fire unattended over night, which means a risk of fire somewhere while you sleep.
Fortunately you house is drafty so you don't have to worry about CO poisoning.
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I have had friends who have heated with wood (one in Illinois, three out west, one in Newfoundland), I had a friend, since deceased who grew up on a farm in Montana in the 20s, and I have gone to a lot of pioneer/settler interpretative centers.